Whirlpool And Sears Part Ways — Well, Kind Of…

According to Fox News: “Sears Holdings will no longer sell Whirlpool appliances after a pricing dispute and changing market dynamics fractured a partnership that stretched back more than a century.”

Fox also reported: “The disagreement with Whirlpool was unrelated to Sears’s credit issues and instead had to do with pricing, one person familiar with the situation said.”

“Whirlpool has sought to use its dominant position in the marketplace to make demands that would have prohibited us from offering Whirlpool products to our members at a reasonable price,” Sears told employees Friday in the internal memo, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.”

WATCH the first commercial and the Lonely Whirlpool Man!

Whirlpool’s famous commercial was a classic with the intonation that the Whirlpool product is so sturdily built that the service repair man was always bored because he didn’t have any service calls! Notice the similarities to the Military in this iconic commercial!

The video is grainy and scratchy but that’s because it was first released in 1967. Also, Jesse White, the first Maytag repairman featured in this original commercial was born on January 3, 1917 which means he would have celebrated his 100th Birthday this year. He passed away on January of 1997 “at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 79.”

Jesse is not the only thing that dates back 100 years. The partnership of Sears and Whirlpool also dates back for a century. Sears and Whirlpool had a price dispute earlier this week. With Sears saying they could not offer the product any longer at the price point Whirlpool was commanding. Sears says that it would have priced the products out of the market.

And although that seems like an ominous thing. We discovered that it is not as grave as it seems. Kenmore is Whirlpool under a different name! And Kenmore will be offered at Sears per CNBC: “Sears said it plans to sell Whirlpool-branded products in its facilities until inventory is “depleted.” Meantime, Whirlpool will continue to manufacture items for Sears’ Kenmore nameplate, the companies have confirmed.”

I have a Kenmore washer and dryer set. It breaks. It’s broken right now. I guess I will call the Kenmore repairman, even though it’s a Whirlpool under a different name. I guess this is a way for Whirlpool to make more money through service calls! Ahhhhh! Capitalism!

(Photo Compliments of Google Search: The Appliance Technician through the years)

And just for fun, take a look at the second Whirlpool man! If he looks familiar it’s because Gordon Jump. Gordan “was an American actor best known as the clueless radio station manager Arthur “Big Guy” Carlson in the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati and the incompetent “Chief of Police Tinkler” in the sitcom Soap.”!

(Feature Photo Credit to CNBC)

Do you have a preference? Whirlpool or Kenmore? Drop a note below and let us know!